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Killer Quotes in Argentina! Big Tobacco calls young smokers "spoilt brats"

No, the Killer Quotes Tour is not heading to Argentina. Our friends in Argentina tipped us off about the latest study of tobacco industry marketing in their country.  A research paper was released earlier this week that studied tobacco industry marketing tactics in Argentina from 1990 to 2004, focusing on tobacco industry documents from Philip Morris (Massalin-Particulares SA in Argentina) and British American Tobacco (Nobleza-Picardo in Argentina) from 1995 - 2004.

They definitely found some Killer Quotes! Apparently Big Tobacco - British American Tobacco in particular - has some choice words to describe their "young adult urban smokers" or YAUS.  They produced a number of documents in the mid to late 90's identifying a segmenet of their YAUS as "spoilt brats."  Spoilt brats!!  Thanks Big Tobacco!

In one of these documents, focusing on marketing "light" cigarettes, they not only identify some of their target customers as spoilt brats, they also define the "young" age group as beginning at age 15 - directly contradicting their claim that they consider young adult smokers as over 18.  You can click here to check out the document yourself.  See page 24 for the spoilt brat reference, and page 8 for the 15 year old reference.

The article notes "the tobacco industry considers Argentina to be a market in expansion and has developed intense and effective marketing campaigns.  Total cigarette sales rose 19.5% between 1990 and 2004." The authors go on to discuss BAT's marketing launch of Lucky Strikes using Hollywood movies as a theme to promote the new brand to young audiences.  They also highlight Philip Morris' marketing of Marlboro's, commenting "the 10-cigarette pack of Marlboro was considered 'the best trial and initiation vehiicle for the brand.'"

You can see for yourself.  Click here to look at the original Philip Morris document analayzing the Marlboro market in Argentina.  Some highlights: check out page 13 for the quote about the 10-cigarette packs, and notice the comment about Marlboro as a starter brand, including "strong appeal to young adult smokers (youngest profile in the market)."  If you scroll up to check out page 11 you'll see that Philip Morris identifies their youngest profile as "up to 24"  not 18-24.  Interesting . . .

The research article goes on to mention that Philip Morris also used strategic event sponsorship to promote their brands to the youth market. "Philip Morris promoted activities that emphasized peer-group activities popular among young people, like free tickets to rock festivals or selected movies, and other activities that communicated independence, freedom and peer acceptance."

You can click here to take a look at an overview of the "Tobacco industry targeting youth in Argentina" article, published in the online journal "Tobacco Control,"  which is part of the British Medical Journal's publications.  You need a subscription to "Tobacco Control" to view the full artice - if you are interested just email Holly at holly@bethecatalyst.org, or post a comment on her profile and she will email you a copy of the article.

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Argentina killer quotes documents youth smokers philip morris BAT